User:LGreg/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge (LG seminar 2020/21)/Seminar 18/Evidence/Evidence in Politics

What is the aim of evidence in politics?

The aim of evidence in politics is to defeat biases that influential figures could have, (which might lead them to take the wrong decisions) by using a scientific process, a process that is purely practical and unbiased.

Is there such a thing as evidence in politics?

To answer this question, we will review a major political episode that can potentially discredit the alleged presence of evidence in politics. The concept of EBPM (Evidence Based Policy Making)  was popularised by United Kingdom Prime Minister, from 1997 to 2007, Tony Blair. Indeed, “What matters is what works” was his party’s slogan. RTC (randomised controlled trial) was a method used in order to implement that concept, the final goal being for policies to be sensible and economical. In other words, the 1997’s Labour party wanted evidence to be central to their politics. However, in the early 2000s, what had become the face of EBPM, Tony Blair supported  President George W. Bush when he denounced Saddam Hussein’s Iraq for building Weapons of Mass Destruction. In this case, we could consider the primary evidence to be Saddam Hussein’s claim to have stopped any project involving nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, after the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Bush’s administration, had satellite picture showing Iraq had military bases. A picture, as it shows us directly the information, could be primary evidence as well. However in that case, there was no hard, tangible proof. Investigations proved that Iraq had not been engaging in what they were accused of but Bush was doubtful and decided to go into war with Iraq on March 19^th 2003. Although his decision has been contested  by many, qualifying the war as "a mistake". Bush, still sustained in his 2010 memoir : “The conclusion that Saddam had WMD was nearly a universal consensus. My predecessor believed it. Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill believed it. Intelligence agencies in Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia, China, and Egypt believed it,” (Decision Points,  2010, p.242)

In that situation, there seemed to be evidence, but it was misused. Why? Because it was an example of evidentiary bias, more precisely issue bias : when the prioritisation and selection of certain pieces of evidence can bias policy agendas in unseen ways (GRIPHEALTH, A cognitive-political model of evidentiary bias, 2016, p.1); which manifested itself through subtle mechanisms.

Indeed, Bush's mistakes did not seem to have been deliberate. Rather, the administration seemed to "have misled themselves", according to Robin Butler in the 2004 "Butler Review" and Hans Blix at Tufts University in 2005.

Why does it seem there is little evidence in politics?

Aristotle stated that, in order to win-over an audience, a speaker must use three rethorical ideas:

• Ethos : assertion of power based off of accomplishments that justify legitimacy to speak of a certain topic.
• Logos : using irrefutable logic, such as scientific evidence and data.
• Pathos : targetting the audience's emotions.

Recently, it seems that politics as well as the media, emphasize the "Pathos" aspect. Especially with the 45th United States president Donald Trump who heavily relied on degrading his oponent Hilary Clinton in order to make his points come across. This strategy is linked to "post-truth politics" which describes the role of the media today, which overwhelms the population with information tragetting their emotions, so that the population will not know how or where to find objective facts.

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